Posted on 03/27/2015 8:15:26 AM PDT by BenLurkin
One such mystery confronting solar dynamics is exactly what drives the periodicity related to the solar cycle. Follow our star with a backyard telescope over a period of years, and youll see sunspots ebb and flow in an 11 year period of activity. The dazzling surface of the Sun where these spots are embedded is actually the photosphere, and using a small telescope tuned to hydrogen-alpha wavelengths you can pick up prominences in the warmer chromosphere above.
This cycle is actually is 22 years in length (thats 11 years times two), as the Sun flips polarity each time. A hallmark of the start of each solar cycle is the appearance of sunspots at high solar latitudes, which then move closer to the solar equator as the cycle progresses. You can actually chart this distribution in a butterfly diagram known as a Spörer chart, and this pattern was first recognized by Gustav Spörer in the late 19th century and is known as Spörers Law.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
I'm willing to give it a try....
Crazy Eyes.
Very true and a good illustration of the importance of mathematics in astronomy. I loved reading about astronomy when I was young but I didn't major in it because I didn't want to have to deal with learning all that math.
“What Drives the Solar Cycle?”
A Chevy Nova? A Mercury Comet?
Man, globull warming can do ANYTHING!
And a Ford probe.
Or a Ford Prefect.
Hilarious!
LOL true
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